Kevin's Watch

lucimay wrote:

aliantha wrote:And luci, yes, of course it's all my opinion. Anyhow, I don't mean to be offering criticism; I'm just comparing and contrasting.

i knew that. i was just using your post to blather on further! i didn't think you were offering criticism. no need for tongue poking!

Oh, there's *always* a need for tongue poking!

Murrin -- I think I started out using visceral in terms of how it was portrayed, and then sorta broadened my definition later. I do agree with you that Erikson sometimes gets a little *too* graphic for my taste. I'm not sure I'd put Martin above Erikson -- I'm reserving judgment 'til he finishes the series. (Sorry, luci, I couldn't resist...)

aliantha wrote:Oh, there's *always* a need for tongue poking!

Apparently you would not say that if you googled for lucimay's image.

wayfriend wrote:

aliantha wrote:Oh, there's *always* a need for tongue poking!

Apparently you would not say that if you googled for lucimay's image.

omg you were tempted too!!!

Murrin wrote:Ah, I was taking visceral to mean how it was protrayed rather than just its occurence. (There's a pretty grisly scene in The Crippled God involving Sinn, for example, and the descriptions of a couple of deaths in that novel also seem a little more detailed than necessary.)

Anyhoo, Erikson: Talented and entertaining; Martin: Master at work.

Responding merely to illustrate a point tongued to death

It's easy to claim Martin as a master at work. First, he is a talented writer that has honed his craft over several decades. But second, he is writing something very manageable (I'll add to him). Erikson, on the other hand, decided to write something exponentially more complicated, something that I'm not sure Martin could (or would) do. At the same time, I'm not sure if Erikson has or can do the type of story Martin does.

In this light, Donaldson does resemble Martin in writing: both write what they both know they can write, and (in my opinion) are very good at it. It's rare that any will go off on an experimental whim like Erikson does. Thus, we see different strokes for different people.

Exponentially! How so?

At least Martin doesn't use "history is inconsistent" to give himself leeway on timeline mistakes.

Murrin wrote:Exponentially! How so?

At least Martin doesn't use "history is inconsistent" to give himself leeway on timeline mistakes.

Compare the histories, Martin's is pretty... simplistic (once again, only in comparison. Martin seems to only invent what he needs, like Donaldson).

And the timeline mistakes exist to make it an authentic Malazan epic

Martin has dozens of major characters and hundreds of side characters to keep track of, it's not exactly straightforward.

Meanwhile Erikson has half a dozen characters that he just uses over and over. (I kid! That's Esselmont.)

More seriously: Erikson's strengths are in theme and plot structuring; Martin's strengths are in characterisation and storytelling. And Martin is a more experienced and accomplished writer, which shows.

Donaldson's strength is putting you deep inside the head of complex, deeply flawed characters.

<ali goes for popcorn>

Murrin wrote:Meanwhile Erikson has half a dozen characters that he just uses over and over. (I kid! That's Esselmont.)

Murrin wrote:More seriously: Erikson's strengths are in theme and plot structuring; Martin's strengths are in characterisation and storytelling. And Martin is a more experienced and accomplished writer, which shows.

Donaldson's strength is putting you deep inside the head of complex, deeply flawed characters.

Excellent summary. I agree. Altho I think Erikson is coming along in the "experienced and accomplished" department; he was *much* better by book 9.

Murrin wrote:Martin has dozens of major characters and hundreds of side characters to keep track of, it's not exactly straightforward.

It's also not exactly uncommon in fantasy literature of today, be it trash or otherwise.

Meanwhile Erikson has half a dozen characters that he just uses over and over. (I kid! That's Esselmont.)

Fie on your unkind characteristic of Esselmont! Though his structures pretty much leads to that scenario...

More seriously: Erikson's strengths are in theme and plot structuring; Martin's strengths are in characterisation and storytelling. And Martin is a more experienced and accomplished writer, which shows.

Donaldson's strength is putting you deep inside the head of complex, deeply flawed characters.

I can definitely agree with you on these points, but then ali would have popped her corn for naught! So en garde!

Great. Now I need to add a critical reread of Erikson and Martin to the one I already need to do for Donaldson.

For the record, I don't think Martin's a bad writer. Not when it comes to the mechanics, anyway. From what I can remember, his style is more sparing than Erikson's, though hardly Hemingway-ish. His characters, when they bother talking, speak more dramatically, like a Christopher Marlowe character without the iambic pentameter, but I never felt they had the same emotional depth or even edge as Erikson's (or Donaldson's).

Along those lines and in retrospect, I find Martin's characters less emotionally stunted or even constipated, which would be his intention, than truncated, as if they were well-tended but rigidly bound bonsais. He trades off for plot, edging out Erikson, but to me, it lacks a measure of authenticity. Granted, I find Erikson to be a bit guilty here as well when it comes to minor characters. And even though Donaldson is an author who claims to know the major details before he writes, I still feel like he lets them go where they need to go, not where he needs them to go (well, until the Last Chronicles, anyway).

I gotta say, I'm two thirds through Memories of Ice, and I finally realized what it is that's been bothering me about Erikson.

The best way to explain it is through an example. Coltaine, leading the Chain of Dogs, has a heart rending and tragic story. Yet... he is nothing other than what he must be. Essentially, Erikson's characters act out their stories as they are, and the story is the result of those characters interacting. That is, they are static. Donaldson's works speak to me so much because the story isn't about the interaction of static characters, but rather how those characters change and become other than what they were.

Of course, as I said, I'm just over half way through Erikson's third book. It could be that big changes are in store for me, and I'm enjoying it enough to wait and see.

Hmmm, he doesn't have much chance to be anything else...

I've only read Game of Thrones, so don't feel qualified to comment on Martin...enjoyed it, but that's about all I remember.

How many years until the next book comes out?

--A

Discovering Donaldson in my early teens definitely influenced the direction I chose as a reader of fantasy fiction. Before Donalson I was ... well I was naive. Innocent even, lots of Tolkien, and Brooks, elve's , and wizards, with the occaisional dragon thrown in for good measure.
As the years passed I found the door to Middle Earth growing smaller, while my eye's began to open to authors like Neil Gaiman, Frank Herbert, and Steven Erikson. So no Donaldson didnt ruin other authors for me, but he is surely responsible for where I am headed ( as a reader), and for where I can no longer go.

Avatar wrote:Hmmm, he doesn't have much chance to be anything else...

I've only read Game of Thrones, so don't feel qualified to comment on Martin...enjoyed it, but that's about all I remember.

How many years until the next book comes out?

--A

Don't go there.

Who cares how long he takes, A Dance with Dragons was excellent and I'm sure the next one will be too.

I think my teenage reading kind of went Donaldson -> Pratchett -> Jordan -> Martin -> Williams* -> Goodkind, with a lot of rereading (this was back when I could read books in just a few days), and the creeping realisation during the last of those that it was actually pretty terrible.

I've of course since diversified a lot, and learned enough about what recommendations to follow that I generally don't come across anything bad any more. Having read so much you do learn to pick up on flaws, as much in the good stuff as in the bad. You could say that in a sense everything I've read has spoiled everything else I've read, but far from ruined.


(*Is it just me or has everyone forgotten about Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn? I really should reread that.)

Murrin wrote:(*Is it just me or has everyone forgotten about Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn? I really should reread that.)

I enjoyed that series, but it's ultimately an LOTR-knockoff, albeit one of the better ones. It's certainly a "so-and-so, just a simple so-and-so, must defeat an ancient evil so-and-so that rises again" story, which I tire of. I guess you can say it is elevated by above-average writing.

I enjoyed Williams and wouldn't mind going back to Sorrow, Memory, and Thorn one of these days. Probably not Otherland, but...

Williams is a good writer, though not incredibly inventive. His strength lies in characterization, which carries the reader through his often tedious plotting.

I discovered Donaldson when I was about 12 or so, about the same time that I was reading Weiss & Hickman, Eddings and all that (broke my fantasy teeth on Piers Anthony prior to that). The difference is that I kept coming back to Donaldson, as if I always knew that the story would mature as I did.